


Man's Best Friend

by 221b_hound



Series: Lady Akela [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, First Kiss, M/M, Matchmaker Mrs Hudson, Werewolf Mrs Hudson, protective Mrs Hudson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-23
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-10 01:55:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2006583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft Holmes, like his brother, is a bit dim when it comes to sorting out his love life. Come to that, Greg's none too bright about it either. Mrs Hudson intends to see her pack happy though, which leads to a night on the town pretending to be a dog. It's undignified, but the wagging ends justify the means. If only those two idiot men would get the bloody hint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man's Best Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [OdeToANightingale](http://archiveofourown.org/users/OdeToANightingale/pseuds/OdeToANightingale) [Man's Best Friend is now available in Chinese! ](http://www.movietvslash.com/thread-129860-1-1.html)

Mycroft visits Mrs Hudson quite often these days. She doesn't summon him - she's not convinced she has _that_ much influence over this particular man, pack or no, wolf-scratched or no. But he visits.

Sometimes it’s to keep her apprised of potential threats – the latest is one John Clay, some years ago thwarted in a daring bank robbery via a tunnel, now on parole. Mycroft doesn’t expect her to have to act in the matter, but since she is now a known line of defence for his brother, Mycroft will employ whatever means are available. Mycroft brought a jumper from Clay’s home so that Mrs Hudson would know his scent.

Mrs Hudson glares at Mycroft for treating her like a common _guard dog_ , and he apologises very handsomely. She lets it pass because, well, it is as good to know who Clay is, if and when he arrives. But honestly. A photograph would have done as well.

Mycroft doesn’t only come on business, though. He often visits for apparently no reason at all.

Mrs Hudson thinks it's because she is the only person he knows to whom he can, even obliquely, confess the weakness and the want he has for another human being. She may be the only one he knows who won't object to his choice; who will not ridicule him for the way he goes wistful-silent over the Detective Inspector, nor try to use it against him. That goes for Sherlock as well as his actual enemies.

Mycroft does not confess easily in his life to much at all, but he knows in blood as well as mind that Mrs Hudson is the pack leader and that she protects the pack, even from each other, if she has to. She’s a real den mother, in that way, though none of the men in her pack would ever use the label.

Sherlock's objections might well be founded on real concern for Greg Lestrade and how good or otherwise his brother might be for him. He would likely express that concern as a kind of jealousy. He might _be_ jealous, too. Sherlock is possessive about his few friends – at least with Mycroft.

Sherlock, as Mrs Hudson has cause to tell herself on more than once occasion, is a dear boy and she loves him, but he can be a right little horror sometimes.

Mycroft doesn’t help this situation, with his needling and his overbearing attempts to control what he sees as Sherlock’s excesses. Honestly, for two very smart men, they fall too easily into the patterns of annoying-little-brother/patronising-big-brother. Anyone would think they actually _liked_ being at least that much like normal people.

Mycroft surely knows he isn’t fooling Mrs Hudson in the slightest, when he says he's come to see Sherlock and pretends to be surprised and disappointed that he's missed him. He treats it like a necessary preliminary, for his own benefit if not for hers, before sitting down to tea and home-made cake and sympathy.

He doesn't often mention the DI by name, either – only asking after goings on at the flat. But he always perks up when Mrs Hudson tells him that Lestrade came by, and how he is looking, and what he said, and whether he mentioned if he was seeing anyone now that his divorce is final.

Mycroft Holmes is not fooling his pack leader one tiny bit. She knows he times his visits for the days following Greg Lestrade’s appearances at Baker Street. It should be farcical, how like an awkward teenager he is about the whole thing, except that it’s just so terribly sad.

“You should ask him out,” Mrs Hudson tells him one visit, tone tinged with exasperation, “It doesn’t do you any good to come to me to pine about him.”

Mycroft purses his lips and glares like he has no idea what she means, but she pats his hand kindly. “Really, Mycroft. It does you no good, this. You should ask Greg out.”

“I couldn’t possibly,” he says, tone like ice.

“Don’t you think he fancies you, dear? Because I rather think he does.”

Mycroft blinks rapidly at this obviously fantastical statement. “He hardly knows me.”

“Oh, _rubbish,”_ she scoffs, “If Sherlock isn’t here when he comes around, he drops in for tea with me, and what do you think he talks about? Cases and police work?” She snorts inelegantly the utter absurdity of such a notion. “No. He asks me about Sherlock’s big brother. Have I seen him lately? Is he married? Do I think he likes sport or only opera?”

“I don’t only like opera,” Mycroft protests weakly.

Mrs Hudson ploughs right on. “Honestly, you boys think I’ve nothing better to do all day than to listen to you witter on about each other. John and Sherlock used to be just the same.”

Mrs Hudson leans forward and pats Mycroft’s hand again. Mycroft is too busy looking stunned/speculative to respond.

“Ask him out, dear.”

But Mycroft doesn’t. Because, she suspects, Mycroft bottled out at the first attempt. Mycroft can run the country without dislodging a single hair, but he seems to not have the first clue how to ask a man on a date.

Silly pup.

Not that the Detective Inspector is much better.

“Sherlock’s brother sent a car for me the other day,” says Greg on his next visit, when Sherlock chases him out of the flat (ostensibly because the case is dull but really, Mrs Hudson can hear, because the case is dull _and_ Sherlock wants to have sex with John. They are making up for lost time, those two. Greg knows perfectly well why he was thrown out of the flat. He thinks it’s funny.)

“He always looks sharp in those suits of his,” Greg continues admiringly, before realising he’s doing it and clearing his throat to a gruffer tenor. “Mr Holmes wanted to know about Sherlock’s latest case and since Sherlock was being a right little bastard – oh sorry, excuse the language…”

“I know what you mean, dear.”

“Right. And Sherlock won’t tell him anything, so Mr Holmes and I talked about Sherlock, and the case... I… probably shouldn’t have told you that. Don’t tell Sherlock. He’ll squeal like an outraged parrot.”

Mrs Hudson tries to hide her amusement at the very accurate picture – Sherlock being all squawks and flaps and ruffled feathers - by fetching biscuits.

“Sherlock should be nicer to him,” asserts Greg, “Mycroft Holmes works bloody hard.” He sighs. “Do you suppose that exotic good looks run in that family _?_ ”

Greg seems to realise what he just said, and swallows a mouth of hot tea too fast and spends the next minute coughing and sucking in cooling air.

Mrs Hudson doesn’t know about exotic good looks, but idiocy when it comes to their _affaires des coeurs_ certainly runs in the family. And it seems to be catching.

“He does work very hard,” Mrs Hudson agrees while Greg regains his composure, “Too hard. He needs to make time to relax, the poor love.”

“Yeah. Can’t be easy to unwind from what he does. Whatever it is he does.” The last is said as though reassuring unseen listeners that he has no idea what that could be, nor does he wish to know.

“The civil service can be very demanding,” agrees Mrs Hudson, hiding her amusement.

Greg finds that funny anyway. He grins and salutes her with his teacup. “The paperwork alone’s a killer,” he agrees. His attitude is one of warm humour infused with a certain resigned melancholy.

Mrs Hudson is trying to find a subtle way to introduce the idea that Mycroft might be looking for company to unwind with when Greg puts the cup down, thanks her for the tea, fetches his coat and departs.

This really won’t do.

Mrs Hudson spends the afternoon considering a number of approaches. She doesn’t think engineering some kind of crisis to bring Mycroft and Greg together is either wise or will, in fact, work. Those two men only seem to see each other when there’s a crisis (about Sherlock usually, but not exclusively). No. They need to see each other in a different context, if the reticence between them is to break down.

(Mrs Hudson has no qualms about being a matchmaker. She is in her 70s. She’s seen and said and done a lot in her life, with varying degrees of success, and honestly, she can’t make more of a hash of this than Mycroft and Greg are doing, she decides.)

She dares the flat upstairs briefly to ask John about Greg’s favourite pubs. John, sitting in his chair at a slight angle, weight more on one hip, grinning to himself like he won the lottery, doesn’t even ask her why she wants to know. Mrs Hudson can hear the shower running, and Sherlock is singing some triumphal-sounding melody to himself.

When the water stops running and Sherlock calls out, “Mrs Hudson, stop taking up John’s time, I need him in here. I have an ongoing experiment requiring his expert opinion!”, Mrs Hudson takes one look at the combined smugness and anticipation on John’s face and retreats. She hopes Sherlock doesn’t think he was being subtle. John at least makes no attempt to pretend the summons is for anything but more sex. The spring in his step as he saunters towards the bathroom is eloquent on the matter.

That evening, Mrs Hudson carefully undresses in the laundry, leaving her folded clothes on top of the machine. Once naked, she _shifts_. She examines the result in a tarnished mirror hanging from back door, which she has left ajar. She cannot look completely un-wolfish, but there are tricks of restraint she’s learned. The result is of a large, raffish canine. She could pass for a cross between a husky and a wolfhound, perhaps – except for her eyes, which glow a tawny-gold. Most people have never seen a real wolf anyway. It’s not like they’ll notice the resemblance.

She noses the door open, trots into the back yard, noses the door shut again, and jumps the fence. She knows London’s streets by scent even better than by sight, so it’s easy for her to navigate across roads and alleys, gardens and squares. She lopes along in the shadows, her gait as always slightly lop-sided due to her wonky hip, but it doesn’t interfere. She’s not in a hurry, anyway. Plenty of time to find Greg.

She locates him at the second of the pubs John mentioned. She stands on her hind legs to look through a window and sees him at the bar. A woman is flirting with him. He is smiling politely back, but he’s not interested. He has not cheered up significantly from his melancholy mood since leaving her kitchen earlier in the day.

A half hour later, Greg emerges alone from the pub and begins to walk off. Mrs Hudson begins to trot along behind him, her claws clacking on the stones of the path.

Within ten steps, Greg stops and glances back. He looks concerned at the size of the dog at his heels, so she wags her tail and pants a little with her tongue lolling out, because that’s how dogs look when they’re being friendly.

Greg smiles. “Well, hey there, feller.”

 _Feller?_ Well, she supposes it’s difficult for him to be more observant in the low light. She comes closer and lets him bend to pat her head and search her neck for a collar.

“You’re a friendly one,” he says, scrubbing his fingers through the fur at her neck and throat and around her ears, “No collar, eh? Not had one for a long while, by the look of it. Where did you come from?” He strokes her back and feels her ribs. “Well fed, though. Well looked after. You’ve got people around somewhere, don’t you boy? You’d best get home.”

She wags her tail some more and noses at his hand so that he’ll keep patting her. He laughs and obliges, but finally stops and walks off. She follows.

“Sorry, boy,” he says, “I can’t take you with me. You stay here, find your people, eh?” He puts his hands in his pockets, and his mouth tilts in a slightly sad smile. “Off you hop, then. You don’t know how lucky you are to have someone waiting at home for you. I’ll bet they’re worried about you. Off you go. Keep away from the cars.”

He turns and walks away, head bowed.

She lets him get half the block away before she follows him again.

The next pub he goes into has a very different clientele. Mrs Hudson finds another window to look through, and she can just make out Greg at the bar. The music is louder and there are men dancing together at one end of the room. A man is flirting with Greg this time, and he is flirting back. The two of them dance for a while, and she loses track of them in the crowd. But an hour later, Greg is out on the footpath again. The man he was dancing with is behind him, glaring, making sure he leaves. Greg looks annoyed, but also sad.

He sees her waiting and his expression softens. She wags her tail and he grins.

“At least someone’s glad to see me, eh boy?” He pats her head again. “You don’t mind that I’m some miserable copper, do you? I haven’t nicked any of your relations lately, have I?”

Mrs Hudson pushes her head against his thigh, leans against his leg and wags her tail ferociously. It’s all a bit undignified, but she’s fond of him, so it’s not much of a hardship. It’s nice that he’s smiling again, poor dear. Some people can really be so rude.

“So, where to next, eh?” Greg asks her, walking off but perfectly happy to keep her at his side this time. “Not back to my place. It’s a miserable little dump and if I have one more night alone there I’ll just drink myself to sleep and that’s the start of a long, lonely road I said I wouldn’t go down again. How about you and me go down to the Coal Hole? The bartender there is a mate of mine. I might even be able to persuade him to let you inside if you behave yourself. You going to behave yourself? Good dog.”

Mycroft Holmes, thinks Mrs Hudson, had better appreciate her efforts.

The bartender at the Coal Hole on the Strand mentions the largeness of the DI’s newly acquired dog, and points out that the ‘good boy’ is in fact a ‘good girl’. He lets her stay, on the proviso she sits under the table, out of the way, and doesn’t bark.

Greg apologises to her handsomely for calling her ‘boy’ all night, and feeds her half of his pork and blood pudding sausage in compensation. She eats it delicately, sprawled under his feet on the floor in the alcove at the front of the pub. Afterwards she sits with her chin on his knee and looks questioningly up at him.

“The bartender isn’t a mate so much as a snitch,” he says to her, “But the beer’s good and I never bump into the ex here. Not her kind of place. They do Gilbert and Sullivan shows here sometimes too. Shh, don’t tell Donovan. Don’t tell anyone. They’d laugh themselves a new kidney if they knew.” He sings a few lines from The Pirates of Penzance to her – _Our feelings we with difficulty smother, when constabulary duty’s to be done, ah, take one consideration with another, a policeman’s lot is not a happy one_ – then laughs self-deprecatingly.

He gets a distant look in his eyes. “D’you reckon _he_ might like it here? If I ever get the bottle to ask him out for a drink? It’s probably not as posh as he’s used to, but it’s not like those swill-pits near my place. It’s pretty posh for a pub.”

Greg stretches in his chair and looks up at the exposed beams in the ceiling and the plaster reliefs high on the wall. “Reckon he could fancy a tired old copper like me?” he asks the space, then he sighs and leans down to scratch her head. “Nah. Me neither.”

Mrs Hudson is so annoyed she could bite him. Instead she whines, scrambles to her feet and stands waiting for him.

Greg laughs. He is mellow from the few beers he’s had along the way tonight, but by no measure drunk.

“Fine, all right, let’s go boy, I mean girl. Where to next? Victoria Embankment? Watch the little bastards tagging Cleopatra’s Needle? Or we could go up to Whitechapel and jump out at the tourists on their Jack the Ripper walks, see if I can make someone scream and Edward Roundtree do his nut at me again. That’d be a laugh.”

Mrs Hudson stares balefully at him with her golden eyes.

“Yeah. Juvenile, I know. It’s hard to resist, though. Eddie’s good at keeping an eye out for dodginess in the borough, but he does love swanning about Whitechapel like an amateur sleuth from a gothic melodrama. So’s Sherlock’s, but he’s a gothic drama queen who’s right most of the time, you got to give him that.”

Mrs Hudson trots at Greg’s side down to the Embankment, but then she starts leaning on his leg, guiding him away from the Thames. Greg scruffs her ears from time to time and lets himself be pushed.

“Whatever you like, girl,” he says, “It’s not like I’ve got anywhere better to be. Might as well let you set the course, eh?”

Thus it is that at around 11pm, they are walking along Pall Mall when ahead of them, a door opens and a familiar figure leaves the Diogenes Club.

Mrs Hudson stops and whuffs softly, so Greg stops too. It’s clear he recognises the man ahead.

Greg takes a breath. It seems for a moment he’s going to speak, to shout a greeting, at least to walk up to the figure on the path, but the moment passes and he just stands there, looking.

Mycroft Holmes, buttoning up his coat, looks skyward to check for rain. Detecting none, he grips his umbrella in his left hand. He checks his watch. He gazes into nothing and sighs. He walks a few steps in their direction, but man and wolf are concealed in shadow and Mycroft doesn’t see them yet.

When he is under a streetlight, his phone rings and he pauses to answer it.

Mrs Hudson and Greg can see Mycroft’s expression clearly in the light as he speaks. He is all business. All aloofness and control and acerbity and repressed impatience. A few choice words are exchanged, Mycroft’s expression becomes more satisfied. Another expression comes over him then, as the other speaker continues.

“How could that possibly inconvenience me?” he replies drily, “What other commitments do you imagine I have? No, no… By all means… I see no reason why your private life should be as barren as my own. Yes, that was a joke. Yes, well, see that you do,” he says.

He slips the phone back in his pocket and for a moment, there in the dark, Greg and his companion see something that almost nobody ever sees.

They see Mycroft Holmes look momentarily weary, and forlorn, and so very, very lonely. He pauses, shoulders slumped, fine mouth drawn down, the lines around his eyes speaking volumes of sorrow and isolation.

Really, thinks Mrs Hudson, this is going wonderfully well. She’d only meant to make them bump into each other, but here is this serendipitous phone call to demonstrate what she’s been trying to say to Greg Lestrade.

She has forgotten how self-sabotaging the menfolk in her life seem to be.

Beside her, Greg clears his throat softly and begins to draw away. She looks at him. Greg is looking at Mycroft with longing, but also uncertainty and embarrassment.

“Come on,” he murmurs to her, “He won’t thank us for seeing him like this.”

Oh, for goodness’ sake!

It looks like a crisis it will have to be, then.

Mrs Hudson leaps into a loping run towards Mycroft. Her claws on the footpath make a distinct clatter. Mycroft looks up and recognises her at once.

 _Good_.

Greg follows her for a few steps. Mycroft masters his surprise on seeing her, on seeing who is with her, and assembles his usual armour of calmness and distance, and that won’t do at all.

The movement of the headlights helps her to judge the vehicle’s size and speed as she darts into the street, right in front of the oncoming black cab.

The next few moments are full of squealing tyres, a blaring horn, two men crying out ‘No!’ and a horrible yelp.

In the next moment, Mrs Hudson’s wolf body is lying on the road, the cab’s wheel scant inches from her back legs, and she is panting and whimpering. Most of that is for show, but the shave was a little closer than intended.

Greg, she can hear, is running towards her. Mycroft has already thrown himself into the street and dropped to his knees at her side. It isn’t the wolf she put in him making him do that, she thinks with affection. Mycroft is genuinely concerned.

Mycroft’s hands are on her flanks, ribs and legs, seeking injuries, while Greg is patting her head soothingly, saying, “It’s all girl, it’s all right. Shh, now. Shh. Everything’s going to be fine.”

The cabbie is spluttering half in shock, half defensively, “’E came out of nowhere, I din’t see ‘im till ‘e was under the wheels, I swear. Ah, bollocks. Poor beggar.”

There is no blood – the damage is really nothing more than some bruising, which is already on the mend. Mrs Hudson was careful to throw herself at the bonnet for maximum noise and minimum force, and to yelp like the devil, but the driver stopped before the vehicle went over her.

Mycroft has finished running his hands over her body, having found no damage, and Greg continues to stroke her head.

“It’s all right, girl,” Greg tells her, his voice strained, “You’ll be fine. There you go. Good girl. Who’s my good girl?” He sounds genuinely distressed.

“No bones broken,” announces Mycroft, “No blood. I think she’s only winded.” Mycroft reaches out cautiously to lay a hand on her neck. Mrs Hudson lifts her head to sniff his fingers and then noses against them, until he gets the hint to pat her.

His fingers tangle briefly with Greg’s as Greg strokes her ears. They both pull back as though stung. Mrs Hudson whines and lifts her head to give them both a beseeching look. Just like a proper tame dog with the whole ‘why has the petting stopped?’ puppy eyes. Greg laughs in relief and resumes tugging gently on her ears (which is much nicer than Mrs Hudson would ever admit to).

Mycroft, more circumspect, moves his fingers against her neck. She gives him a look which she hopes he will read accurately as ‘What are you waiting for?”.

He doesn’t.

While this happens, the cabbie checks his car for dents. The cab’s bonnet and front fender are bent. He curses the dog briefly, but gets a double glare for his pains, so he gets in the car and pulls away, leaving the two men and the crazy dog on the street.

With another quiet whuff, Mrs Hudson tries to get up. It’s more difficult than it ought to be. Her hip aches from the impact. Greg tries to shush her, to make her stay still, but there’s no point in just lying there. So she scrambles up, her large wolf form filling the space between the two men where they have knelt beside her on the street. She nudges Greg under the chin in a friendly manner, making him laugh (though she refuses to lick his face like some kind of tame thing, not least because her saliva has dangerous properties and such a friendly gesture could have unhappy consequences).

She wriggles between them, bumping against Greg’s chest and wagging her tail, and he pats her flanks and ribs and head enthusiastically. “There you go, girl,” he’s saying. He grins at Mycroft, that sunny, bright smile. “Right as rain, like you said, Mr Holmes.”

Mycroft appears transfixed by that smile, before glancing down into Mrs Hudson’s impatient golden gaze. At last he takes the hint.

“Call me Mycroft, please. So. Detective Inspector…” At Mrs Hudson’s expression he tries again, “Gregory. Is this... your...” He pauses before getting the word out, “Dog?” He strokes his fingers over her scalp and the base of her ears.

“Oh no. We just made friends tonight, didn't we girl?” Greg scruffs at her ears roughly and she wags her tail. 

“I. See. “

“I'll have to find her owners,” Greg says ruefully, “Someone takes care of her; you can see that. But she could get hurt ... Well, you saw. I'd love to keep her myself, but a cop’s hours are hell. She'd never get enough walks. Would you girl? Would you?”

She wags her tail and wonders how she might hurry this thing along. All the patting is starting to get irritating. 

“Yes. She seems to need her runs.”

She gives Mycroft a sharp look. Now he's making jokes, is he? At least he’s begun to relax.  

She wriggles out of the space between the two men, bouncing around in a puppy-ish manner, until she gets behind Mycroft as he starts to rise and bounds right against his spine.

Mycroft lurches forward and is saved from getting scraped up on the road when Greg catches him.

To be on the safe side, Mrs Hudson bounds against him again, sideswiping his backside so that he falls even more inelegantly into Greg’s arms.

Mycroft Holmes blinks up at Greg Lestrade, holding him steadily in his strong arms, against his broad chest.

Greg Lestrade blinks down at Mycroft Holmes, into his blue eyes. Into an expression that seems simultaneously fearful and wistful.

Greg leans down and kisses Mycroft on the lips, briefly but firmly.

Then he draws back and holds his breath, as though he can’t believe his own audacity.

Mrs Hudson can hear how fast their hearts are beating and honestly, if they make a hash of it now she’s going to give up in disgust.

But the two men are staring at each other, inches apart, almost not breathing, then Mycroft leans forward in the DI’s arms and presses a soft kiss to Greg’s lips. It’s longer than the kiss he received, but softer.

Under the press of Mycroft’s lips, Greg’s part slightly, and he returns the kiss with interest. This spurs Mycroft on to intensify the pressure.

Mrs Hudson stands guard in the middle of the road so that no cars come past to run over these two idiots. A car does drive by, honks its horn at the giant animal, and veers past it and the kissing men, who finally part when they realise their danger.

“We’d best get the dog off the road,” says Greg softly. He rises and although Mycroft doesn’t need the help, he places a hand under Mycroft’s elbow to help him anyway, then gets his umbrella for him. They step onto the footpath, Mrs Hudson stepping up with them, and they turn to each other.

“Mycroft, I…”

“Gregory, we…”

They both stop and seriously, Mrs Hudson will bite someone if they start this nonsense again. But no. Greg smiles instead, a little shyly.

“You call me Gregory.”

“I…”

“I like it. From you. You make it sound good.”

Mycroft breaks into a pleased smile. “It’s a noble name, of Greek extraction. It means ‘vigilant’.”

“Does it? And what does ‘Mycroft’ mean?”

“In the old North Midlands dialect, it means ’the meadow by the water’.” Mycroft sounds disappointed by that.

“You know what I think it means?” Greg steps close to Mycroft. Mycroft is a fraction taller than he is, but Greg is broader of shoulder. When Greg stands close like that, their chests brush together, and their mouths are but a breath away.

“What?” asks Mycroft in a wondering exhalation, eyes fixed on Greg’s.

“’Man of power who looks dead sexy in a suit’.”

Mycroft smiles. “In what dialect?”

“Old London Flatfoot.”

“What a splendid language,” decides Mycroft, “From a splendid breed of manhood.”

“Isn’t it?” Greg’s fingers wrap around Mycroft’s and hold on. “You know what else is… splendid?”

“I am eager to learn.”

“You kissing me. Don’t suppose you’d like to do it again?”

Mycroft obliges, and the two men kiss again, there on the street a hundred yards away from the Diogenes Club.

They break apart long enough for Mycroft to say, “I am sure matters would continue… splendidly… if we remove them from the streets of Pall Mall.”

Greg smiles a slow, sexy smile, but right then he sees Mrs Hudson trying to make a discreet exit. “I’d love to, but I should get that dog home…”

Mycroft looks over at her, exasperated. Mrs Hudson, who was limping slightly, knows how he feels. But then she sees that he is regarding her with some concern. He saw the limp, of course. It’s nothing, really. She’s just tired, and that hip does play up so.

“Of course,” says Mycroft to Greg, “Where…?”

“I’m not sure,” confesses Greg.

“I shall have Sherlock look into it,” says Mycroft. Greg laughs, thinking it’s a joke, but Mycroft only smiles. “He owes me a favour,” says Mycroft, “I’m sure he won’t refuse me such a trifle.”

“I wouldn’t take a bet on it, it’d be taking advantage, but all right,” says Greg, then he looks at Mycroft through his surprisingly long lashes and says, “Then my place, for a nightcap? If you… that is…”

“That would be…” says Mycroft, and he brushes his lips close to Greg’s ear, “… _splendid_.”

Greg is still grinning as he flags down the next passing cab. Mycroft pays a large sum of money in advance to convince the driver to allow the huge dog into the back with them. Mrs Hudson makes a point of sprawling in the corner and forcing the two men to sit close by each other. The way they sit, thighs pressed flush together, hands brushing constantly, they don’t seem to mind.

The men spend the trip talking. Greg asks Mycroft if he likes Gilbert and Sullivan. Mycroft responds by singing from the Mikado – _Ah pray make no mistake, we are not shy; We're very wide awake, the Moon and I_. Greg’s blazing smile is very like _the Sun whose rays are all ablaze with ever living glory_ , which is what put Mycroft in mind of that song in the first place.

At Baker Street, Greg agrees to wait with the cab while Mycroft delivers the animal to Sherlock to find its home. But first Greg crouches by her on the footpath and fusses over her, with pats and scratches.

“Thanks for the company, girl,” he says, tugging on her ears again, “You were good luck for me tonight. I’m glad you weren’t hurt. Now you let Sherlock find your people and you stay out of trouble, eh? Don’t go wandering off again. You might not be so lucky next time. Mmm?”

Mrs Hudson head butts his chest and wags her tail because… well, because. She’s her own wolf and she can express her affection however she likes.

Mycroft pats her head. “Let’s get you home, young lady,” he says. Cheeky beggar.

He opens the front door and once it is closed he follows Mrs Hudson to the laundry, where her clothes are kept.

From upstairs comes the distant sound of laughter and, to her supernatural hearing, the laughter is clearly followed by the sounds of kissing. She rolls her eyes. Those cubs are still at it, apparently.

But… an odd smell lingers in the laundry, coming in under the door. It’s a scent that she knows, faintly. One that she does not like.

She sits, still in her wolf body, and looks at Mycroft.

“Your point is well taken,” he says, pretending hard to be aloof.

She makes a slight shift in her muzzle and then, in a feat that is utterly freakish and deeply unsettling, her wolf mouth talks with human shapes. “Don’t keep the Detective Inspector waiting, dear. Go and have your nightcap.”

Mycroft smiles. Nods. He leaves.

Mrs Hudson waits until she can hear the doors of the cab close on the voices of the two men, still talking, even laughing together. The cab drives off.

Mrs Hudson, still in her wolf body, turns in the narrow space and changes her paw into a more hand-like extremity so she can open the door into the tiny back yard. The hand reverts to paw and she stalks outside.

The man crouched behind the small tin shed where she keeps wood for the fireplaces in winter glares at her. “Shoo,” he says, gesturing at her with the hand that holds the gun.

Her eyesight is excellent in the dark and she can see that it’s John Clay, but it was his scent wafting under the back door that first gave him away. She might confess as much to Mycroft later.

But she has no intention of disturbing his night, especially after working so hard to help him achieve such success with it. And she has no intention of disturbing her cubs upstairs (who by the sound of it are sharing a bath. That tub isn’t nearly big enough for two of them, and she is concerned by the sound of sloshing water that the bathroom will flood and leak through her ceiling).

Instead, she looks at John Clay with her tawny-gold eyes, much more intelligent than any dog, and she shifts her mouth again.

“Stay away from my house, and stay away from my cubs,” she says, very distinctly in her human Mrs Hudson voice.

Clay stares at her. And stares. And stares.

She makes her paw a hand again and takes the gun out of his limp grasp. At the last minute he realises what she’s doing and makes a grab for the weapon, but she bears her fangs and snarls and he recoils.

“Stay. Away,” Mrs Hudson says to him again in very clear human diction. “If I ever scent you near this house again, I’ll tear your throat out and eat your beating heart.”

The scent of Clay pissing his pants is acrid and nasty.

“Run along dear,” she says, “And don’t ever come back.”

John Clay stumbles out of his hiding place and lurches to the back fence. He tries and fails three times to climb it, until the wolf approaches, snarling, and then he’s over, and off, stumbling away in terror.

Mrs Hudson waits a few minutes to be certain he’s gone. Then she digs a hole in the garden to bury the gun – she will have Mycroft take it away some other day – and returns to the laundry, where she regains her human form and dresses.

Her hip aches terribly. She limps inside to her apartment and changes out of her shoes and into her slippers.

In her own bathroom, where she has gone to brush her teeth, she peers at the mouldy patch on the ceiling, but it’s not dripping yet. Maybe it won’t be a problem.

Then she makes tea, rolls herself a herbal soother and settles into her armchair to watch one of those old late night films she used to watch when she was a girl. This one has a very young Roddy McDowell and that dog, Lassie.

Mrs Hudson snorts in disgust and shakes her head. She is nobody’s pet dog, all tail-wagging and saving-the-day. Mrs Hudson is _were_. She is a wolf protecting her pack. Any tail-wagging done in the course of that protection is purely incidental.

Still, she watches the film. It has a young Elizabeth Taylor in it, and Mrs Hudson always liked her.


End file.
